Stage J - Science

Descriptors

11A - Students who meet the standard know and apply the concepts, principles, and processes of scientific inquiry.

1. Formulate issue- hypothesis, reviewing literature as primary reading sources, differentiating between subjective/objective data and their usefulness to the issue, or examining applicable existent surveys, impact studies, or models.
2. Design an issue investigation, proposing applicable survey and interview instruments and methodologies, selecting appropriate simulations, or projecting possible viewpoints, variables, applicable data sets and formats for consideration.
3. Conduct issue investigation (following all procedural and safety precautions), using appropriate technologies, interviewing associated entities or experts, testing applicable simulation models, or completing all data collection requirements.
4. Interpret and analyze results to produce findings and issue resolution options, evaluating data sets and trends to explore unexpected responses and data distractors, evaluating validity and reliability, or substantiating basis of inferences, deductions, and perceptions.
5. Report, display and defend the process and findings of issue investigation, critiquing findings by self and peer review, generating further questions or issues for consideration, evaluating comparable issue resolutions or responses for action, or generalizing public opinion responses.

11B - Students who meet the standard know and apply the concepts, principles, and processes of technological design.

1. Formulate proposals for innovative technological design, generating ideas for innovations and variables, identifying design constraints due to access to tools, materials, and time, or researching applicable scientific principles or concepts.
2. Design and conduct technological innovation testing, developing the sequence of the design with visualizations, incorporating the appropriate safety, available technology and equipment capabilities into construction of design, or repeating procedural steps for multiple trials.
3. Collect and record data accurately, using consistent metric measuring and recording techniques and media with necessary precision, documenting data from instruments accurately in selected format, or graphing data appropriately to show relation to variables in design solution proposal.
4. Interpret and represent results of analysis to produce findings, comparing data sets to design criteria for suitability, acceptability, benefits, or proposing explanations for sources of error in the data set for process or product design flaws.
5. Report the process and results of a design investigation, explaining application to appropriate scientific principle or concept, communicating anecdotal and quantitative observations, analyzing a logical explanation of success or errors, or generating additional design modifications which can be tested later.

12A - Students who meet the standard know and apply concepts that explain how living things function, adapt, and change.

1. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to explain biochemical reactions, diagramming metabolic, hormonal, regulatory, feedback or transport molecular models in and between organ systems, explaining homeostasis, or tracing the balance of cellular ATP.
2. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to explain new biological technologies, projecting possible implications of current research (e.g., Human Genome Project, immune system responses).
3. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to synthesize the principles of genetic studies, examining phenotypic and genotypic displays, modeling predictable dominance outcomes and probabilities, or making connections to early and current research in agriculture, forensics, medicine, etc.
4. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to examine explanations of evolution, researching how genetic similarities are conserved between species, genera, families, etc., analyzing the testing process for acceptance by the scientific community, referencing geographic, geologic, or anthropologic evidence for the sequencing of the genus, Homo, or introducing the mitochondrial and nuclear DNA basis of genetic kinship of the species.
5. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to explain disease from the organelle-to-population levels, explaining body defenses to infectious disease in various organisms, or researching historic and on-going efforts to prevent, cure or treat diseases.

12B - Students who meet the standard know and apply concepts that describe how living things interact with each other and with their environment.

1. Apply scientific inquiries or technological design to research the sustainability of water resources, sketching and quantifying the hydrologic cycle locally and globally, describing the role of oceans on climatic systems, describing the impact of invasive organisms, alterations of chemical and microbial concentrations (pollutants, salinity), global and site average temperatures, simulating water supply recharge/deficit/surplus and groundwater infiltration, modeling effects of point source and non-point source pollution, or explaining water and sewage treatment.
2. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to research the sustainability of land resources, studying the role of biotic and abiotic soil components in decomposition and nutrient cycling, collecting data on soil composition, porosity, permeability, fertility etc., or quantifying the impact of topsoil and mineral preservation, erosion, and reclamation.
3. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to research the sustainability of air resources, modeling the atmospheric layers with their currents and temperature inversions, or explaining the percentage chemical compositions and conversions at varying levels as associated with the greenhouse effect and ozone depletion or acid-rain concentrations.
4. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to research the sustainability of energy sources, comparing alternative natural sources of energy to fossil energy sources in terms of risks, costs, benefits, supplies, efficiencies, storage, and renewability, or analyzing impacts of conservation measures and recycling on energy consumption.

12C - Students who meet the standard know and apply concepts that describe properties of matter and energy and the interactions between them.

1. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to explain chemical bonding and reactions, balancing chemical reactions using formulas and equations to quantify reaction masses, volumes and ratios, examining factors that affect capacity to react or rates (concentrations, pH, catalysts, molarity, temperature, etc.), or referencing the bonding potential and strengths within and between atoms and molecules.
2. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to explain atomic and sub-atomic structures and energy, describing the composition of the nucleus and its transformations in nuclear reactions and predicting energy released and absorbed, explaining atomic structures to masses, volumes, charges, and isotopic connections, or explaining schematic designs for devices to detect, analyze, produce such structures or processes.
3. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to explain wave theory, explaining the wave and particle nature of light, constructing tests for reflection, refraction, image formation by mirrors and lenses, diffraction, and polarization, describing common examples of optical devices, or addressing light in the context of the human eye (and other light-sensitive animals).

12D - Students who meet the standard know and apply concepts that describe force and motion and the principles that explain them.

1. Apply scientific inquiries or technological design to explore the nature of forces,comparing gravitational, electromagnetic, nuclear strong and weak interactive forces, or describing the impact of these forces at all levels.
2. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to explore the basics of general and special relativity, identifying the basic tenets of Galilean transformations, Newtonian relativity, Einstein's postulates, Hawking's theorems, etc., or describing real-world applications to these postulates.
3. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to explore gravitation in terms of space physics, applying gravitational potential energy and satellites, or describing the applications of rocket propulsion.
4. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to explore thermodynamics, explaining the kinetic theory of gases, the ideal gas laws, calculating temperature and pressure variations of gases, specific heat values, and heat capacities of solids and liquids and mechanical equivalents of heat, calculating thermal expansion and transfer capabilities of different substances, or explaining entropy in common terms and examples.

12E - Students who meet the standard know and apply concepts that describe the features and processes of Earth and its resources.

1. Apply scientific inquiries and technological designs to analyze meteorological research, defining and quantifying factors which affect local and global weather and climate, relating earth-to-solar interrelationships, or applying local or global topographic features to weather and climate.
2. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to analyze geological research, modeling the formation of volcanoes, earthquakes, ocean floor spreading, and tectonic plates with quantitative data, explaining technologies which determine relative and absolute age, or documenting effect of natural and human-influenced erosion and deposition that have changed the Earth's surface.
3. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to analyze oceanographic research, describing current ocean research, projecting potential resources from mining the oceans, proposing ocean levels from varied data associated with global warming, or Quantifying Earth's water budget.
4. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to synthesize the earth sciences, describing the flow of energy in different earth subsystems and their physical and chemical effects on atmosphere, land, and water, explaining theories of the origin and evolution of Earth's oceans, atmosphere and land masses.

12F - Students who meet the standard know and apply concepts that explain the composition and structure of the universe and Earth's place in it.

1. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to investigate historical studies of the universe, comparing schematics, optics, development and capabilities of telescopes and spectroscopes, examining data collections of Copernicus, Brahe, Kepler, Newton, Galileo, etc. as the basis for their discoveries or theories and current research.
2. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to investigate current and proposed research studies of the universe, comparing schematics, optics, development and capabilities of spectrophotometric technologies, explaining the Doppler effect in terms of red and blue shifts, reporting on the newest discoveries from the Hubble Space Telescope, ground-based or satellite counterparts, etc.exploring the mathematical calculations and evidence associated with the Big Bang Theory, or
3. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to investigate the energetic reactions of stars, explaining the fusion process and its associated nuclear and mathematical calculations, predicting the gravitational collapse of stars of different masses, evaluating the supporting evidence for the size, age and expansion of the universe.
4. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to explore exobiological possibilities, comparing different elemental life forms on earth, or researching evidence associated with existence of past life on solar system bodies.

13A - Students who meet the standard know and apply accepted practices of science.

1. Apply appropriate principles of safety in pure and applied research studies, examining animal care precautions for adherence to safety standards, referencing applicable chemical storage, handling, and disposal procedure regulations, researching procedures and policies to eliminate or reduce risk in potentially hazardous activities, or citing federal or state agency requirements for employees for safety regulations in science research settings.
2. Apply scientific habits of mind to current pure and applied research studies in life, environmental, physical, earth, and space sciences, interviewing scientists about how they address validity of scientific claims and theories and/or their understanding of scientific habits of mind (including sheer luck) and how they have been integral to their own research, recognizing limitations of investigation methods, sample sets, technologies, or procedures, questioning sources of information and representation of data, recognizing selective or distorted use of data, discrepancies and poor argument, distinguishing opinion from supported theory, tracing citations from research studies for validity and reliability, or reporting on peer review and juried panel review in research approval and scientific community acceptance.

13B - Students who meet the standard know and apply concepts that describe the interaction between science, technology, and society.

1. Analyze challenges created by international cooperation and competition in scientific knowledge and technological advances, explaining multinational corporations' challenges or impact for resource acquisition, or researching the cooperative efforts and dilemmas associated with global partnerships
2. Analyze scientific breakthroughs in terms of societal and technological effects, citing how beliefs and attitudes influence advances, examining global distribution of energy, natural or fiscal resources, or evaluating how scientific advances from different cultures are received.
3. Analyze environmental impact studies, describing the design and procedures, synthesizing the findings and justifying the recommendations, or comparing methods for minimizing pollution or procedures for monitoring environmental quality.
4. Analyze local, state, national, global scientific policies in terms of costs, benefits, and effects, identifying policies which have affected local needs, costs, or products, assessing national or global costs of policies from American or non-American perspectives, or evaluating data used in media explanations of resource, technology, or policy impact.
5. Analyze how scientific and technological progress have affected job markets and everyday life, investigating projected trends over 2-3 decades, or assessing costs for technological progress on personal, governmental, economic and ecosystem impact in the sciences.

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